


‘til you were next to me, next to me

by Arinalle Fanirei (ShakyHades)



Series: Tour of Worlds [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, so much fluff your teeth will rot as you read this, vaguely post kh3, who cares about canon we're only here to have a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShakyHades/pseuds/Arinalle%20Fanirei
Summary: It takes weeks of pleading and planning for Sora to convince Riku to use one of their rare breaks between missions to visit Atlantica for fun, but he gets his boyfriend to agree to it eventually -- Sora is nothing if not obstinate, after all.Riku doesn’t exactly share Sora’s enthusiasm in discovering how he’ll look as a merman, but it’s a small price to pay in exchange for spending a whole day together without needing to worry about their usual responsibilities. So, he’ll find it within himself to bear the transformation with grace -- with the unspoken promise to smack Sora with his keyblade if said boyfrienddaresto laugh at his new appearance, of course, because that’s just what best friends do.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Tour of Worlds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998400
Comments: 16
Kudos: 61





	‘til you were next to me, next to me

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Next to Me, by Sleeping At Last.  
> (Honestly, nothing's ever made sense til you were next to me, next to me)  
> So, this idea took me by storm. It came to me with such clarity and such detail that I just _had_ to write it— and now here it is! And it's the first of a series! (fuck my entire life, I did not need another series added to the pile of things I have to write, but I GUESS.)  
> This is just cute sappy mushy soriku goodness, with a dash of 'it's time to awaken everyone's Atlantica traumas' because I say so. (I actually opened KH1 to look at Atlantica for this fic and oh GOD that was a MISTAKE NEVER AGAIN)  
> Anyway, enjoy!

Riku doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the feeling of being affected by transformation magic; of his body shifting in ways his mind previously thought to be outright _impossible_ , just to fit in into whichever world they’re visiting at the time.

He takes a few seconds to brace himself for what he’ll see upon opening his eyes, resisting the urge to breathe deeply even though Sora had assured him that they’re one hundred percent capable of breathing underwater. Muscle memory has him trying to beat his legs to stay afloat, but he curbs that instinct as well, not knowing how such a movement would translate into his currently tail-having self.

Sora remains completely silent during this entire internal debacle of Riku’s, letting him adjust his expectations of how the world works at his own pace. Normally, such quietness would be more than enough reason to be concerned -- Sora is always moving, always humming -- but Riku can feel some barely-there waves hit him at regular intervals, which his brain helpfully interprets as being caused by Sora beating his own tail somewhere in front of him.

Riku doesn’t know what he expects when he’s finally ready to open his eyes, but it certainly isn’t noticing that his vision remains mostly the same, if perhaps a bit sharper. Sora’s smile turns into a grin when Riku’s gaze lands on him, and he immediately swims just a little closer, more than happy to invade Riku’s personal bubble now that he knows it won’t freak him out.

“Breathe, Riku,” Sora reminds him in a whisper, snickering softly at the dirty look Riku shoots him.

Something akin to pure, distilled panic turns Riku’s organs inside out as he readies himself to inhale -- as his islander instincts scream bloody murder against the notion of doing something as _stupid_ as inhaling _water_.

One of the first things kids at the Destiny Islands learned was to never open your mouth to scream if you fell into the water, while also repressing the urge to gasp at all costs, because doing so could make things go south very, _very_ fast. Still, he presses onward, ignoring all of the dangerously loud sirens going off in his head to take a tiny, barely-there inhale, just to test things out.

“There you go,” Sora says when said tiny inhale is followed by a bigger, slightly more confident one.

“This is _so_ weird,” Riku huffs. He feels like there should be something inherently different about breathing underwater, but it seems like there isn’t; he can’t even feel the water that he’s supposedly taking in.

“I know,” Sora laughs, swaying in place. “But you’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“How does it even _work?_ ” he frowns in confusion. “Shouldn’t we have gills or something?”

“Beats me!” Sora shrugs noncommittally. “I don’t _ask_ how the magic works, I just thank the fact that it does.”

“Typical,” Riku teases, chuckling at how Sora sticks his tongue out in response.

“I bet you’d look nice with gills, though,” he hums thoughtfully, reaching out to smooth a hand over Riku’s ribcage. Riku resists the urge to shiver; for all that he’d already noticed their complete lack of clothing, Sora’s touch on his bare skin is still somewhat surprising. “Where do you think they’d be-- ribs or neck?”

“I have _no_ idea,” Riku declares in a matter-of-fact voice. Sora hums again, his thumb rubbing over Riku’s skin one final time before retracting his hand. “Do we just lose access to all of our items while down here?” Riku asks next, running his right hand over where one of his pockets would be.

“Not really,” Sora replies, kicking his tail until he’s completely horizontal. “Our potions and stuff just appear in our hands whenever we want to use them, and any stray materials I picked up along the way were just teleported to my pockets when I got back onto the gummi ship.”

Riku blinks a few times, then sighs. “No use trying to make sense of it, then.”

“Yep,” Sora nods solemnly, lacing his hands behind his head as he grins at Riku.

“The necklace stays, though, huh?” he wonders out loud, tracing the familiar crown shape with his eyes.

Sora pulls the pendant upwards, tucking his chin into his neck so as to be able to see it too. “It always does, no matter what form I take.”

Something warm bubbles up inside Riku’s chest at that statement, and he can’t stop himself from giving Sora a definitely sappy smile. Sora grins back when he notices it, swimming closer to wrap his arms around RIku’s neck to press a kiss to his cheek, much to Riku’s amusement.

Sora’s excitement has them floating a bit backwards, which brings Riku’s attention to something he hadn’t consciously noticed up until now: his hair. His mouth falls slightly open in shock as he reaches out to take hold of a few silver strands -- strands that are way, _way_ longer than they had been when he and Sora parked the _Highwind_ in orbit around Atlantica.

“What the hell?” he asks incredulously, turning his head around this and that way to examine his suddenly-really-long hair. Sora laughs unabashedly at his reaction, pulling away to watch his boyfriend’s utter bafflement at this development.

“You’re only noticing it now?”

“Yes?? Has it been like this the whole time!?”

“Ever since we landed, yeah,” Sora snickers.

Riku huffs exasperatedly before straightening his posture and reaching for a handful of strands near his nape, pulling on it so as to pinpoint its length. He huffs again upon discovering that his hair reaches his _waist_ \-- longer than it’s ever been, even during the year Sora spent asleep.

“You know what, I’m just not going to question it,” he states flatly, eyeing the cloud of silver that surrounds his head with slightly narrowed eyes.

“I like it,” Sora pipes up, cupping both sides of Riku’s jaw before moving his hands further back to play with his floating hair. “Don’t get me wrong, I love your spiky short hair, but I kinda missed it being long like this.”

“At least one of us is enjoying it,” Riku smiles, closing his eyes as he leans into Sora’s touch. Sora kisses the tip of his nose in return, then laughs as Riku scrunches up his face.

“I’ll enjoy it for both of us.” he nods.

“Please do.”

They spend a couple of minutes just like that -- with Sora humming as he massages Riku’s scalp and occasionally chuckling at Riku’s long, slow blinks.

“As much as I love this, we should actually start teaching you how to swim with your new tail,” Sora says after a handful more seconds, letting his hands drift to Riku’s shoulders. 

“Mm, yeah. Wouldn’t be much of a trip if we stayed in the same spot the whole time.”

“Exactly,” Sora smiles, taking Riku’s hands in his to pull him along as he swims away from their landing spot. “The tail tripped me up a lot at first, but I got used to it eventually; this is just another way to swim, after all, and we’ve been doing that since we were tiny little babies.”

“I don’t even _remember_ learning how to swim,” Riku mutters, studying the way in which Sora moves so as to copy it later.

“Yeah, me neither,” Sora snorts. “I remember when _Kairi_ learned it, though,” he grins, shooting a quick look backwards to make sure they’re not going to swim right into a rock or something.

“She’s going to pout for _days_ for not being able to come with us,” Riku remarks, his mouth curling into a smirk at the sound of Sora’s laughter.

“You’re _so_ right,” he shakes his head, changing directions and starting to pull Riku upwards. “I can’t really blame her for taking the chance to do a mission with Aqua, though.”

“Yeah, it’s a great learning opportunity for her,” Riku nods.

“What do you think her tail would look like?”

“I really don’t know,” Riku smiles indulgently, looking down at his own deep turquoise tail.

It’s somewhat funny to compare both of their tails, honestly: Sora’s is a smooth dolphin tail without any adornments, built for function rather than appearance, while Riku’s every scale shimmers in the faint sunlight -- not to mention the translucent side and caudal fins that the transformation magic had seen fit to give him as well.

It feels like just a tiny bit _too much_ , but Riku is not about to let that bother him. Maybe the magic went all out on his tail because he had no significant accessories for it to keep in the transformation, like Sora with his necklace? Hmm, he’ll have to find a way to test that.

“Ready to try swimming on your own?” Sora asks once they’re a handful of meters above the seafloor -- a fair distance away from anything that Riku could accidentally bump into.

“Yeah,” Riku nods determinedly, dropping his arms back to his sides when Sora lets go of his hands.

“Okay-- how about a little game of tag?” Sora grins deviously, laughing at the exasperated look he gets from his boyfriend for the suggestion. “I’ll go easy on you, don’t worry,” he winks, moving out of reach before Riku can bat him away.

“Fine, but I’m gonna make you eat those words before the day is out,” he narrows his eyes, letting some of his old cockiness color his voice.

Sora swims further away with languid beats of his tail, lacing his hands behind his head and shooting Riku a quasi-mocking expression. “We’ll see about that,” he says, his lips curling into a familiar challenging grin.

“You’re on!”

They spend an unknown amount of time chasing each other around, throwing taunts over their shoulders and leaving a trail of scared marine animals in their wake. It takes Riku a few minutes at the very least to fully suppress the urge to beat his legs separately, but from then on, it’s just a matter of learning how to twist and change directions effectively before Sora declares him good to go.

“You should be glad that there are no more Heartless around here,” Sora comments once their game is done, summoning the Kingdom Key to perform a few experimental swings.

“There were Heartless _here?_ ” Riku asks, unable to contain his horror at the thought of having to fight in such conditions.

“ _Yep_ ,” Sora smiles with false cheer and dead eyes. “ _Really_ annoying ones, too. There was one with this huge jellyfish-like membrane around its head that just split into smaller ones when I defeated it -- it was the _worst_.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Riku groans, letting all of his distaste seep into the sound.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Sora nods emphatically.

There’s a lull in their conversation after that. Sora swims lazy circles around Riku, close enough that Riku would only need to reach out to touch him.

 _Always, always moving,_ he thinks, smiling wryly as he does so.

“Was there anything specific you wanted to do?” Riku asks, stopping himself from following his boyfriend with his eyes until he gets dizzy.

“Oh, um,” Sora stops, frowning adorably. “Not really? I kinda thought about visiting Ariel for a moment, but I have _no_ idea if the magic would give us our legs back if we returned to land and no particular desire to test that out right now.”

“No one else you’d like to see?”

“There’s Sebastian and Flounder, but I don’t want to go into the palace today, so I figured we could just swim around; explore a little.”

“Lead the way, then,” Riku smiles, gesturing towards the vast ocean that surrounds them.

“To the surface!” Sora grins, shooting upwards as fast as a bullet and laughing when Riku lets out a noise of protest.

“I know you know better than to swim up that quickly,” Riku chides him once he catches up, pulling on Sora’s cheeks despite the amused complaints he gets in return. “Having a different physiology doesn’t give you an excuse to be careless!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Sora half-laughs, rubbing his cheeks for a second before leaning in to press a light peck to Riku’s lips. “Slowly, then,” he says, lacing his fingers with Riku’s and resuming his ascent at a more sedate pace.

Riku sinks back to his ears with a disgruntled expression immediately after reaching the surface, prompting Sora to let out an ugly snort.

“What is it?” he asks.

“The _hair_ ,” Riku groans, combing a hand through it to pry it away from his skin before he can swim upwards again. “I forgot to expect it.”

“That’s so cute,” Sora coos, raising an arm to protect himself from the splash Riku sends his way. “At least your bangs didn’t get gigantic like before,” he hums, tracing one of Riku’s eyebrows with his index -- right where said bangs end.

“Small mercies, at least.”

“I’d braid it for you, but I’m pretty sure we have no hair ties here and there’s _no way_ a braid would stay in your hair without one; it’s just too silky,” Sora clicks his tongue, running his right hand over the silver with a fond look.

“It’s alright, I’ll just deal with it.”

“Mkay,” Sora smiles, continuing to play with Riku’s hair as he studies the area around them.

If Riku squints hard enough in a particular direction, he can see the barest hint of jagged cliffs and small rock outcroppings in the distance; the magic had deposited them quite far from dry land, it seems. Aside from that, all that surrounds them is miles upon miles of water.

“How about we just explore for a bit? See what kinds of fish there are in here and all,” Sora suggests after a few beats, turning back to Riku with a bright smile.

“Sounds good,” Riku smiles back, lifting a hand to shade his eyes as he gauges the angle of the sun. _Still a few hours to go until midday,_ he notes to himself before following Sora back underwater.

It doesn’t take them long to find a couple of schools of fish to watch at their leisure. They have fun studying the dozens of species they can see swimming about and comparing them to the ones back home; at some point, Sora swims into the very middle of a swarm, his chuckles filling the area around them as the fishes brush against him in their desperate attempt to flee a possible predator.

When they start getting hungry, they go closer to land to find a rock to sit on, since Riku isn’t particularly fond of the idea of trying to eat _underwater_. True to Sora’s earlier words, the food simply appears in their hands once they wish for it; Riku just accepts it with a shrug as promised, unwrapping his sandwich with damp fingers and digging in.

Sora finishes his lunch first -- to the surprise of no one, given his tendency to pretty much _inhale_ food more often than not -- and then settles at Riku’s back to comb through his boyfriend’s drying hair with his fingers.

“Are you going to braid it?” Riku asks with a smile once he notices Sora partitioning it, doing his best to hold still.

“Yeah,” Sora replies after a beat.

Riku doesn’t even have to turn around to picture his expression: tongue caught between his teeth in concentration and wearing that positively _adorable_ little frown of his as he forces his fingers to go through the correct motions for the idea he has in mind.

“When I was in the Kingdom of Corona, I saw these kids braid Rapunzel’s _super long_ hair, and I’ve been wanting to try out some of their techniques ever since,” he adds as an afterthought, muttering a request for Riku to lift his chin just a bit more. “But none of our friends really has long enough hair for me to do it, so I’m not gonna pass this up now that we’re here.”

Riku only hums in response, sending the remnants of his lunch back into their magical inventory and making himself comfortable.

The constant breeze that continues to blow from the ocean onto the land further ahead makes staying directly under the midday sun bearable, if not outright _comfortable_. They’re likely to get sunburnt over it, sure, seeing as they had neglected to put any sunscreen, but it’s nothing that a good Curaga won’t fix, so Riku doesn’t allow himself to think about it too much.

“Why don’t you tell me how your last mission went?” Sora asks a couple of minutes in, snapping Riku out of the slight doze he’d fallen into. “I know you already told me it went well, but I want the _details_ ,” he grins, the smile evident in his voice.

Riku chuckles at the request, curiously smoothing a hand down his tail as he pulls up the memories in question. Sora listens as attentively as ever, asking questions and making encouraging noises at all the appropriate pauses.

He can’t help but feel somewhat bereft when Sora’s hands leave his hair, but the motion is followed by Sora asking him to tilt his head this way and that, then by the unmistakable sound of his gummi phone’s camera shutter going off.

“Look!” Sora exclaims proudly, shoving the device into Riku’s hands and waiting for a reaction with clear expectation. Riku gives the photo all the attention it deserves, zooming in on different parts to make sure he’s noticed every single detail.

“It looks great, Sora,” he smiles genuinely, leaning in to steal a kiss from an all-too-willing Sora before reaching back to carefully trail a hand over his hair.

“I’m glad you think so!” Sora grins, scooting to the side to get a handful more kisses out of Riku. “There’s actually a few more styles I want to try, though, so say your goodbyes to it,” he says, grinning wider at the snort he gets from Riku.

“Knock yourself out,” Riku tells him, waving a hand in nonchalant permission.

Not that Sora _requires_ any permission to go on, of course.

“You visited the Land of Departure a few days ago, didn’t you?” Sora inquires, undoing the elaborate braid with deft fingers before starting to comb through it again. “How’s everyone?”

Sora has to stop in his braiding more than just a couple of times to laugh helplessly as Riku relays Vanitas’ latest shenanigans. If Riku didn’t know any better, he’d think his best friend was being _murdered_ , what with the occasional screams that leave his mouth amidst the breathless guffaws.

“Stop, stop, my stomach hurts too much!!” Sora eventually begs, leaning against Riku’s back for support as he clutches his abdomen. “I know I shouldn’t laugh so hard all this -- god knows it must be hell to Aqua, Terra, and Ventus -- but it’s just too good!”

“He certainly knows how to make the most of his little traps,” Riku grins widely, letting out a few chuckles himself.

“I hope we never, ever, cross him,” Sora declares as solemnly as he can, straightening his back for a half-second before he clutches his stomach once again. “Ow, ow, that was a mistake!”

“Here,” Riku laughs, reaching out to cup Sora’s cheek and cast a quiet _Cure_. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Sora smiles, nuzzling Riku’s hand like a cat. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Sora weaves Riku's hair into two more elaborate braids before calling it a day, presenting the photo of the last one with the same excitement he’d shown in the previous two.

“Amazing, just as I’d expected,” Riku smiles fondly, gifting Sora a kiss in exchange for his beautiful work.

“Pity that it’ll undo itself pretty much as soon as we go back underwater,” Sora pouts slightly, toying with the untied end of the braid. “I need to find some long-haired friends willing to be my test subjects,” he grins mischievously, chuckling at the softly exasperated look Riku sends his way.

“Knowing you, that should be absolutely no trouble,” Riku declares wryly, unable to keep himself from smiling when Sora laughs. “Hair-styling: yet another skill for us to add to the list of ‘Sora’s possible munny-making skills in case hunting Heartless ever stops being a lucrative business’.”

Sora laughs harder at that, swatting Riku’s shoulder at the mention of the list Roxas had created in jest upon learning just how many abilities Sora had amassed in his travels. Cooking, dancing, singing, you name it-- Sora has probably tried it at some point.

“What’s next?” Riku asks once Sora has quieted back down, shifting sideways on the rock to be able to put an arm around his boyfriend’s waist.

“Hmm, there are a few caves and stuff we could explore to see if we find anything interesting, but other than that, I just thought we could try to collect some seashells for Kairi and Xion.”

“ _Underwater?_ Sora, we don’t know what’s safe to pick up and what isn’t!” Riku huffs with a roll of his eyes, knocking the other’s head with his knuckles.

“I know, I know, but we could maybe poke them from a distance or something!”

“With _what_?” Riku arches an eyebrow dubiously.

“...Our keyblades?” Sora suggests hesitantly, visibly bracing himself for Riku’s reaction.

Riku jabs Sora on the ribs and groans at the resulting pout, shaking his head in mild exasperation at his best friend’s familiar antics. “Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what the hell to even do with you, Sora.”

His boyfriend’s grin at those words is immediate; he very nearly launches himself onto Riku’s lap, lacing his hands around Riku’s neck and leaning in to press a loud kiss to his cheek.

“You could love me plenty!” he exclaims brilliantly, ripping a chuckle out of Riku.

“I already _do_ , you dork.”

Sora makes a show of considering the words, tapping his lower lip with his index while feigning a pensive expression. “You can’t love me more?”

Riku’s smile goes impossibly soft -- mushy in a way he only ever allows himself to be around Sora and Kairi -- but he can’t bring himself to care. “I don’t think that’s humanly possible, Sora.”

Sora flushes a light pink in response to Riku’s utterly sincere confession, but he’s caught off-guard only for a second; then, his lips curl into a smile that could easily rival the sun in its brightness.

“You’re such a _sap_ ,” he grins, because that’s how this song and dance of theirs goes -- cultivated over more than a decade of friendship. “I love you too, Riku.”

Neither of them are capable of holding back smiles as they kiss, which in turn has both of them chuckling into the tiny space their breaths share as they rest their foreheads together, closing their eyes with twin sighs of pure contentment.

“I meant it, though,” Sora whispers a handful of seconds later, letting out an ungainly squeal when Riku digs his fingers into his boyfriend’s sides. Riku swallows the incoming protest with a kiss, only pulling back when Sora’s shoulders have relaxed once more.

“There’s no use in arguing with you, so I won’t,” he says, carding a hand through the side of Sora’s hair. “I’m going to be staying a safe distance away from you, though, and possibly recording, just so everyone else can see the great Hero of Light getting stung by some animal whose shell he poked with his keyblade.”

Sora’s pout is _enormous_ by the time Riku is finished, but it won’t work on him this time around -- he’s too used to having to deal with the fallout of Sora’s half-baked ideas to be stopped from getting prime entertainment out of them whenever he’s able.

“You’re so _mean_ , Riku,” Sora whines, giving him his best kicked-puppy look.

“Yes, yes I am,” Riku nods solemnly, completely unmoved. “Don’t worry, I’ll heal you if anything happens-- after I laugh, of course.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Sora scowls, gracelessly removing himself from his boyfriend’s lap. “I was gonna give you the prettiest seashell I found, but now I won’t.”

“What a _pity_ ,” Riku deadpans, dry as dirt, biting back the grin that bubbles up in response to Sora’s expression of exaggerated displeasure.

“Fine, be like that!” his boyfriend exclaims, jumping back into the water with a huff and resurfacing only long enough to send a mild splash in Riku’s direction with his caudal fin.

Riku doesn’t waste any time before giving chase, smirking at the squeak he gets when Sora realizes he’s being followed. He doesn’t let Sora’s somewhat impressive burst of speed deter him, either; this, too, is part of their usual song and dance, and Riku isn’t about to let Sora get away from it just because he’s more used to swimming as a merman than Riku is.

Sora lets out something embarrassingly close to a squeal when Riku finally catches him, wiggling like an eel in Riku’s unyielding embrace for a second before he loses himself to the giggles that result from Riku pressing feather-light kisses all over his nape and shoulders.

“Okay, okay, I give!” Sora manages to huff eventually, turning to face Riku as soon as the hold on his waist loosens a bit.

Riku’s already expecting the barrage of little kisses to be returned, but he enjoys it all the same; Sora lands a particular one just behind his earlobe that has him snorting uglily as he bats his unrepentant boyfriend away.

“You’ll get _one_ seashell,” Sora tells him firmly, lifting his index for emphasis. “No more.”

“That’s fair.”

“Good,” Sora nods, letting go of his serious expression in favor of a wide, easy grin. “The braid really is all gone already, isn’t it?” he sighs fondly, sinking his hand into the cloud of silver that trails after Riku.

“I guess so,” Riku shrugs, copying Sora’s action. “The chase must have helped it along.”

Sora hums his agreement, petting the strands a couple times more before he reaches down to lace his fingers with his boyfriend’s. “Now, c’mon, I’m pretty sure the cave I told you about is this way,” he smiles, dragging Riku with him towards the direction he’d pointed out.

Riku sputters when they reach the mouth of the tunnel of turbulent water that will supposedly lead them to their destination, but Sora only grins and tightens his hold on Riku’s hand before cutting through the current with a few powerful kicks of his tail -- pulling Riku along for the ride, of course.

“Aaaand here we are!” Sora announces with a flourish once the small passageway they’d been in gives way to a large cavern. “There was this big, annoying shark lurking around here when we first came to this place, but I took care of it!” he adds confidently, crossing his arms with a self-satisfied expression.

“Good job,” Riku tells him somewhat amusedly, swimming upwards a bit to take in the full extent of the cave. “It looks like a lot of ships have sunk here,” he comments, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Sora nods, mimicking Riku’s actions with an air of appraisal. “Most of them are pretty bare at this point, but I thought we could go around to see if we find anything interesting.”

“Sure,” Riku shrugs, picking one of the smaller, half-buried ships at random and lazily swimming towards it.

He groans upon seeing Sora immediately sink his hands into the soft sand, shaking his head exasperatedly at the questioning frown he gets from his best friend.

“There could have been some sort of dangerous animal buried in there, Sora!” Riku reminds him in an ever-suffering tone, rubbing his knuckles onto Sora’s scalp until Sora squirms away. “Be more careful!”

Sora pouts heavily for a moment, absentmindedly rubbing the abused spot on his scalp. “Fine, you meanie,” he says after a beat, summoning the Kingdom Key with a small flash of light before proceeding to gracelessly ruffle around the sand with it.

Riku has to take a second to truly process that image: one of the Guardians of Light, using his unbelievably powerful magical weapon to... poke sand for hidden treasures.

Leave it to Sora to do something of that sort, really.

About an hour later, all they have to show for their extensive search is a dozen or so trinkets-- a couple of small rhinestones, half a bracelet, a small metal clasp, a rusted pendant, and a bunch of pretty seashells. This comes as no surprise to both of them, of course, but Sora still finds a way to have fun with it: he makes up outrageous stories to explain why such items came to be where they were found, throwing out wild guesses as to what they used to look like before the ocean took them in its embrace.

As a bonus, Riku only had to pull Sora away from a spooked animal looking to sting whatever disturbed it _once_ , which is a definite win in his books; on the other hand, Sora then suggests they head out into the open sea to find more shells for their friends, which means the score is unlikely to remain favourable for long.

Sora tells him yet more details about his previous visits to Atlantica as he sifts through sand and gravel, describing the pillars in King Triton’s throne room and the big, colorful oysters that opened only when hit with the correct magic spell. This makes him pay less attention to what exactly he’s poking with his keyblade, of course, which in turn causes more than just a few near-misses with strange sea animals that Riku never saw on the Islands. Typical, really.

Still, he can’t find it in himself to do more than playfully chide Sora for his recklessness; his boyfriend looks so utterly _happy_ poking the ground with the Kingdom Key as he gestures wildly with his free arm -- completely immersed in whichever story he’s telling -- that Riku can’t really muster the appropriate disapproval, seeing as his heart is currently too busy being overfull of warm, squiggly feelings.

Sora gives Riku every shell he finds so he may inspect them, watching with a pleased smile as Riku turns it around in his hands before sending it to their magical inventory. After a couple dozen ones have been stored away in this manner, Sora presses the latest seashell into Riku’s hand with a bit more intent than the previous ones. waiting until Riku glances up to meet his eyes to speak.

“This one is yours,” he declares proudly, tracing one of the shell’s smooth edges with his index.

It’s a pretty little thing, almost weightless and somewhat translucent; its color, a deep teal, immediately tells Riku why Sora picked this one seashell out of all the others to serve as his gift.

“It’s lovely,” he says, smiling softly and leaning forward to give Sora a kiss. “Thank you.”

“Of course!” Sora beams, eagerly going back to being the single biggest disturbance this patch of the ocean floor has ever been subjected to.

When Sora tires of poking the sand at last, Riku kindly suggests that they find the rock they’d had lunch on to sit and talk until it’s time to go back home for the day, which Sora accepts in a heartbeat.

Once they finally locate it -- thankfully after only a few minutes of looking -- Sora convinces him to lie down with his head on Sora’s scaly lap, though it takes a bit of maneuvering until they find a comfortable position for it due to Sora’s pesky dorsal fin.

They stay in Atlantica until the sun has disappeared under the horizon, taking in the beautiful sight of the sunset only those in the open sea can witness. Sora sighs happily as the last couple of rays fade away, snuggling himself closer to Riku’s side with a noise of contentment.

Riku ruffles the brown, dry spikes before pressing a kiss to the top of Sora’s head, chuckling when it just makes Sora shift even closer still. As loathe as he is to break this wonderful moment, Riku knows that Kairi is likely to have finished her mission with Aqua at this point; and the longer it takes for the two of them to get home, the more impatient she’ll get to hear how their day had been, so they really should get going.

With this in mind, Riku shifts his arm so as to present Sora with his open hand, drawing back to be able to give him a small smile. “Ready to go back?” he asks, his smile growing bigger as Sora starts to grin too.

“Yeah,” Sora replies, slotting his hand into Riku’s with a nod.

**Author's Note:**

> I only realized that Sora actually doesn't have the necklace in his mer form way after I'd written that part, but then I kept it anyway because that's a DUMB decision, why is Atlantica the ONLY ONE out of ALL THE OTHERS (that I know of, anyway) to have him NOT HAVE HIS NECKLACE IN A WORLD TRANSFORMATION? That's stupid!!  
> I also only realized later (and with the help of my beta) that Sora Does actually have long-haired friends he could braid the hair of, namely Aerith and Tifa, but shhhh he forgot too, okay? They slipped from his mind u_u  
> I already know the next one is going to be in Halloween Town (with Kairi, this time!) but I have no idea when I'll actually get around to writing it... Still, that's something, right?  
> I'm @thefiresofmustafar on tumblr!


End file.
